Joyce (The Silent Land) blends reality with fantasy in this modern-day fable. When 35-year-old Tara Martin shows up on her parents’ doorstep two decades after she disappeared, unkempt and looking oddly as if she’s barely aged, her older brother, Peter, a farrier married with four kids, can’t hide his hurt, angry feelings—but they grow even stronger when Tara offers a preposterous story about riding away with a man on a white horse as an explanation for her disappearance. Peter breaks a 10-year silence with his former best friend, Richie Franklin, who as Tara’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance was the main suspect, to let him know that Tara’s back. The two men haltingly take up their friendship where it left off, and Richie realizes that he still loves Tara. As Tara accepts counseling with an eccentric psychiatrist and a stranger lurks about, Peter and Richie begin to wonder if her fantastical story may actually hold some truth. Though Joyce envisions an intriguing realm nestled against our own, what’s most compelling are his characters’ chaotic emotions and reconnections as they struggle to cope with what they can’t understand. Agent: Doug Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic. (July)